Except this is Sunday. Just happen to be waiting for the Orange Line trolley. Encanto, halfway east to La Mesa — Sundays, they only come every half hour. And, daggone it, one rumbled by a moment before I got here.

Look around. Hmm…houses on one side of the tracks, this 50-foot clay cliff on the other. And at its base, a long rack of shops. Lessee, a fish place, a quinceañera dress shop… Down at the end, big letters on the front slope of the roof: “Caribbean Taste.”

Two minutes later, I’m across Imperial Avenue, heading into this place with a huge brick-and-iron oven right behind the counter. I mean, we’re talking massive, six feet high, several iron doors, big metal vents up on top. So, yeah, these guys look like they are serious about cooking.

The counter has a glassed-in display filled with reggae CDs for sale. The walls are brown — except for the back wall. A beachy blue mural fills that. Hanging wooden signs above the counter say, “Good food, good friends, good times.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6.”

Over at one of the tables, a lady named Jacqueline opens a polystyrene box stuffed with rice, veggies, and chicken. Thick black sauce covers the chicken. “BBQ chicken,” she says. “Goo-ood.”

And ,wow. There’s way plenty. What portions. I see on the photocopied menu that it’s $8 for the “small” or $11 for the “large.”

Jaqueline

Guy comes out from the kitchen behind the oven area. He has a generous face with a big smile. Little gap between the front teeth, so you know he has to be big-hearted (that’s what my grandma always told me). Peter Ormsby. From Jamaica. Has that lilt in his voice.

He hands me a white sheet of paper with the menu items on it.

Check down the list. Lot to take in. Just the Jamaican Breakfast section…

I see they have something called callaloo and codfish, with yam, boiled banana, and dumpling, or fried dumpling; $7, or $10 large. Callaloo? Turns out it’s a Caribbean dish based around the callaloo (or amaranth) bush. It came out from West Africa with the slave ships.

Or how about ackee and codfish? That’s Jamaica’s national dish. Ackee’s a tree (also from West Africa) that has a fruit with parts that are poisonous if it’s not ripe, though it’s healthy as heck if it is. So, you have to hope the cook knows what he’s doing. Wonder what it tastes like. Costs $12; $14 for a large plate.

And the main meals? I’m seeing curry chicken ($8) and curry goat ($9), each with rice, beans, steamed veggies, fried plantain. Or brown stew chicken ($8) or fish ($12), or something I definitely recognize: jerk chicken. Carla’s always been a fan of that

There’s a bunch of people forming a line behind me. “Uh, we close in an hour,” Peter tells me. “We always get busy around this time.”

“How about the curry goat?” I ask. It costs $9 ($12 for a large).

“That’s good,” says a guy in line behind me. Brandon. “That’s what I’m going to have.”

“It’s just that,” Peter says. “Hooves of a cow. We slow-cook them for an hour or more. Then we take them out and shred the meat and collect the drippings, and we add thyme and garlic powder and green onion and...okay, the rest is secret.”